Sourcing

Roasting

Brewing

The Café Femenino project is about giving hope to women in coffee producing countries throughout the world. The Café Femenino Foundation was formed in 2004 and named in honour of the 464 courageous Peruvian women who made the decision to improve their own lives through their work in coffee production. The non-profit organization provides grants […]

With just a month until Christmas we had a craving for some traditional festive spices here at Grumpy HQ… but of course with a caffeinated kick! So that led us to experiment with our Cascara to create a festive seasonal drink to warm your hooves. What you will need: 30g Cascara 1litre of boiling water Half an […]

We have a few great inexpensive tools on the web-shop to help you brew great tasting coffee at home, firstly the Aeropress which is perfect for travel as it’s an all in one piece of kit. Secondly and probably the most heard of is the French press or Cafetiere and finally the V60 or Pourover. […]

A first for Grumpy Mule, we’ve got our own Cascara– and its flippin’ lovely! You’ve got what I hear you ask? Cascara is the dried and flaked skin of the coffee cherries, but is brewed like a tea or infusion (I suppose technically it’s a tisane), so the first thing to get your head round […]

Last week saw Riccione play host to the second annual Barista Guild of Europe, Barista Camp. The camp is aimed at working baristas with the intention of educating, inspiring and equipping baristas with new skills. As part of our commitment to the UKBC as main roaster sponsors, Bewleys promised to take the best newcomer to […]

Coffees come and coffees go – or certainly at least the smaller lot coffees that tend to make up our seasonal Roast to Order espresso blends. (Btw, small lot size does not automatically equal amazing quality – that debate for another day!). So every little while as lots run down & new coffees come in, […]

It’s that time of year again where the Great Taste Awards have been announced, and we’ve surpassed the success of last year and in total have scooped six awards for our Grumpy Mule coffees! The Great Taste Awards is pretty much the Oscars of the food and drink industry, the Great Taste logo is a […]

It’s always exciting to bring in new coffee. To be fair, we get to experience and share numerous different coffee through the year in our Roast to Order range, and again with the Micro-lot programme, and of course – a fairly consistent flow of new crop and seasonal replacements coming in throughout the year for all the blends and other coffees we carry.

One of the brilliant parts of working in the coffee industry is the annual World of Coffee get together arranged by the SCAE. The location changes every year so for 2015 Gothenburg had to live up to the good times had by all in Rimini 2014. Gothenburg seemed like a much more appropriate city as it boasts a burgeoning speciality coffee scene, however, unfortunately our visit was fairly short lived so the extent of the adventures in the city was refined to the evening socials at the city centre theme park!

First part of the trip was cantered around the Las Lajas Estate & micro mill, a farm we are familiar with and have enjoyed their coffees for several years. Oscar and Fransisca make and their family in their own words ‘live coffee’ as their house is maybe all of 10m from the mill & drying beds!
Well known for a couple of years now for processing exceptional honey and natural coffees, the key is in fastidious attention to detail and not being afraid of experimentation. As Oscar said on one of our long talks; “It is the responsibility of the barista and the producer to innovate in coffee”. As the roaster in the middle, I think we hold the key to marrying the innovation at both ends of the coffee chain – a big responsibility!